


Leverage

by SkiraDeCorvus



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Blackmail, Brotherly Love, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, M/M, Odin's A+ Parenting, Parent-Child Relationship, Slavery, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:41:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2147664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkiraDeCorvus/pseuds/SkiraDeCorvus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Avengers are called to counter an attack of Dr. Doom everything seems to go according to plan until it does not. As shit hits the van, SHIELD sends in their newest agent to save the day but when the dust settles and the Avengers can take a closer look they are quite surprised to recognize their hero as the well known trickster Loki.<br/>As the Avengers  retreat to the Stark Tower to lick their wounds, they have to deal with a confused Thor, a silent Loki and SHIELDS secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Doom and his ugly as fuck bots

**Author's Note:**

> So, first of all I’d like to excuse possible mistakes as I am no native speaker and do not have a beta. If you find a mistake, please feel free to inform me. 
> 
> Secondly I’m not sure how often I will be able to update but I will try my best.
> 
> And last but not least, I’m new here on this site and don’t have a clue how to use the formatting. So please excuse me if there are funny things happening.
> 
> ‘Nuff said, here we go…

“I’ve got him in sight! Cap’, better duck that head of yours.”, Barton’s voice came over the intercom as an arrow whirred over the battlefield.

Steve did as he was told and flung himself into the dirt. Not a second to early, as the projectile shot away over him.

To be honest, the Avengers were a great team or things like this would not work out without at least lacerations on their own side. Everybody knew to trust the others and in turn also trusted them with their lives. And they always did the job.

Unfortunately the villains were also getting better. Especially Doom. 

Hawkeye’s arrow never hit his target but only one of Doom’s bots that stepped directly in front of him and went down with a loud buzzing.

“Where did that bot come from?!”, Barton fussed angry before he had to leave his post as several other bots now decided him to be the center of their attention.

“No clue. Jarv, you got any information for us?”, Tony answered and shot down an other of the newest bots. Ugly fuckers that looked like the lovechildren an octopus and a meat grinder. Their grabby tentacles transported everything in reach to the grinder in the middle of the construct to be shredded to dust.

“Sir, I’m afraid that I can not find any readings of your opponents. They are not showing up on my sensors. But I can offer an educated guess if you would like me to?”, Jarvis chirped in. Tony rolled his eyes before answering.

“Please Jarvis, enlighten us with your guess.” There was a moment of silence before Jarvis answered.

“As I can not locate them with the sensors of the suit or with the visual uplink I established to the SHIELD satellites..” , he started.  
“You hacked a SHIELD satellite?”, Tony interrupted him rudely.  
“Yes Sir. In fact I’m linked to seven of them at the moment as well as three satellites of the U.S. government and one of N.A.S.A.”, Jarvis confirmed.  
“Stark! Tell your computer to release my satellites immediately!”, Fury barked at him at the same time as Hawkeye’s laugh could be heard.  
“He’s not a computer Fury. Jarvis is a good boy. Well done buddy, I’m proud of you.”, Tony praised his AI and sidestepped an other bot that was aiming one of his tentacles at his head. Up close he could even see little grip tongs along the tentacle…ugly fuckers they were.  
“Thank you Sir. I appreciate your affirmation Sir. But as I was elaborating before being interrupted…I have to conclude that the bots are subterrestrial and are able to penetrate the ground within minimal time.”, Jarvis offered his guess. Tony froze for a second.  
“Subterrestrial?”, he murmured before looking down where he stood. And as in every crappy horror movie the ground chose exactly that moment to break and let Tony take a close up look into the meat grinder below him.

“Get your asses somewhere up!”, he screamed into the intercom and powered his repulsors to gain high. His timing was great for the meat grinder but unfortunately the tentacles were faster than his speedup and grabbed him around the ankle.  
“Fuck! Some help please!”, he requested into the field.

“Use your repulsor blasts Stark! Cap is in the same situation and Nat is trying to hunt down Doom!”, Barton called in clearly in distress. Tony glanced at where Captain America was last and saw him struggling with eight tentacles that tried to put him into the grinder. Supersoldier or not, this would not go over well for him. Behind him on a rooftop Barton aimed and severed one tentacle from the bot.

Back to his own problem, Tony could not see how to use his repulsor without loosing altitude..something he did not want to do at the moment.  
To call Banner was out of question. He would smash him together with the bot into smithereens.

“Thor!”, he called when the increase to maximum power on his repulsors did nothing but strain his suit. A second tentacle was crawling um his leg and wound itself around his hip with crushing force.

“On the way, man of iron!”, the called demigod answered before dark clouds started to fill the sky and the telltale rumble could be heard.

“Don’t you dare to use your Picatchu-attack now! I’m in the way!”, Tony panicked. It would not be the first time the thunderer grilled him. Thank you very much but no! Every time he encountered the lightning, he twitched for days on end.

Gladly Thor did not use the lightning strike but opted to land next to him on the ground before plucking out the bot of the ground with Tony still in his tentacles like a flower. A second later the bot stopped whirring and the tentacles flagged uselessly to the ground –on of Thors hands still in the torso of the machine.

“Is everything alright man of Iron?”, the blond muscle asked as if it was nothing he just did. It probably wasn’t for him.

“System is still checking but as it seems the thing destroyed some important circuits in the suit and managed to deform it. But the next time I need the batteries of my remote changed I’ll call you. Should not be a problem for you to open that box of frustration.”, he joked.  
Below him the ground started rumbling dangerously.

“Tell me that this is just an earthquake.”, Tony tried to make puppy-eyes in his suit but as usually Natasha decided to ruin his day.

“Doom just activated something! Not sure what but I doubt it will be fun for us! I’m coming back to assist.”, she informed the rest of them.

“Pretty please?”, Tony tried again but obviously the present god did not feel like granting wishes today.  
A giant crack appeared in the middle of the road and several tentacles broke free. Each one of them as thick as a man, followed by a giant robot as tall as a building. Well, not as tall as the Starktower, but still rivaling Hammer-industries. With some luck it operated on the same systems software and could be brought down easily.

“I will slay that monstrous thing.”, Thor announced, readied his hammer and flew off, only to be smacked out of the air like a fly. The wall he crashed into pulverized and sent the god tumbling down to the ground where several of the smaller bots appeared to restrain him.

“That was anticlimactic…”, Tony mumbled.  
“You call that anticlimactic? I’d call it distressing.”, Barton threw in his own two cents and sent a brigade of arrows flying. Each one of them hit their target and exploded. The problem was, the bot did not even so much as twitch. 

“Sending in missiles. Get out of range.”, Tony warned and activated his suits targeting system. The automatic zoom in showed him the hinges of the metalmonster and autolocked on each of them. In his peripheral vision he could still see Captain Americas shield bounce off the torso without leaving a scratch. Well…fuck.

“Everybody out? ‘Cause I’m firing in 2 seconds!”, he requested the others to answer and got conformational grunts or a short yes from each of them.  
As soon as the missiles were up and ready, Tony fired them. They were small – had to be to be carried in the suit – but tough little shits.  
They exploded as calculated. Uncalculated was that they did no destruction and only enraged the bot further.

“I start to think that this is above our paygrade…”, Hawkeye called in stunned.  
“Fury to everybody, get your lazy asses out of the target-zone. Incoming friendly attack.”, came the strained voice of the one-eyed agent over the intercom. 

“Don’t you dare to send an other missile! This time we do not have a wormhole to dispose of it! If you send it in, there will be collateral damage here!”, Captain America exclaimed.  
“Sir, I detect something coming in.”, Jarvis reported dutifully and called up a new screen showing a strange magnetic field encircling them slowly.

“The heck is that?”, Tony murmured before Fury repeated himself.  
“Get out there I said. If any of you is still in there in ten seconds, he or she will have to answer me directly. I repeat. Get away! It is no missile we are sending in but get away!”

“I can see something coming…”, Natasha informed from a rooftop before halting mid sentence.  
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck. No clue what it is but we better get going!”, she finished and disappeared from the roof.

And whatever got Nat to swear and disappear, it sure as hell also made the other avengers haul ass.

The Avengers were a great team and worked together like professionals. But Anthony Edward Stark has always been and will always be a nosy bastard and will want to know everything. Might be his death some day but the data Jarvis gave him made him curious.  
As the other Avengers disappeared in various directions he just gained altitude and observed the creepy green fog crawling towards the bot. It was fascinating.  
Several of the smaller bots came in contact with the fog before they were hauled under the fog and a sizzling sound could be heard. Whatever this was, it made short play with everything it touched.  
And the he saw the red cape.

“Thor! Fury, call whatever this is back! Thor is still in! He’s down! He can not escape!”, Tony alerted Fury immediately. The answer made him perplex and suspicious at the same time.  
“Stark, this will not be a problem.”


	2. What are you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony does not listen to Fury. Black Widow and Hawkeye almost pay the price for it and the green mist masks a deeper secret. A secret only Thor is aware of. To bad that he is still down for the count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I’d like to thank Crazy_Cat_Lady, Laura_trekkie and jps for pointing out mistakes they found. Thanks a lot! 
> 
> And of course Artmetica has to be mentioned for welcoming me here on this site. I’m looking forward to writing and reading here!
> 
> Shall I tell you more or shall I finally move my lazy ass and get started? Yeah…votings will not be necessary I think.
> 
> Hope you will have as much fun reading, as I had during writing.  
> Recommended song for this chapter: Jo Blankenburg - Vendetta or generally everything from this guy!

“Stark, this will not be a problem.”

Tony hovered over the field – formerly known as downtown - and witnessed as an other of Doom’s bots seemed to loose his footing and was swallowed by the green fog. Sparks enlightened the dark green and for a split second one could almost be persuaded to see something come into being and move within it. Something quick and deadly, striking the bot down without much effort before dissolving into nothingness again.

“Fury,…”, Tony started unbelievingly, still keeping one eye at Jarvi’s readings. They did not make sense. Nothing of it did. Whatever Fury sent in, it should just not be possible. There was energy – much of it, but it changed location within the blink of an eye inside the fog. 

Wherever it appeared, the green haze gained height, encased the bot and took it down in a swirl, just to flicker out of existence in the next moment. 

“…what is this?”, he breathed the end of his sentence into the intercom. As not even one of the other Avengers gave an answer or even said anything, Tony was sure that they all were somewhere around, witnessing the same terrifying spectacle with him. 

Tendrils of the haze slowly moved towards Thor and the bots that still clung to him, not quite touching any of them but staying in a parameter around. It striked like a predator closing in on it’s prey. 

“I’m going in.”, Ironman announced and fired his repulsors at the same moment, plummeting down as soon as he could.  
“You stay the fuck out of there Stark!”, Fury barked and Tony could imagine him clearly with his one eye and his billowing black leather coat on the helicarrier.  
“Jarvis, get everything ready we’ve still got and shut Fury down!”, he ignored the order. On his screens the different systems switched to active one after an other as Jarvis booted them in minimum time and even went so far as to check them and power them up before Tony even came near Thor.

“All systems activated, checked and ready for your use, sir.”, the A.I. confirmed idly.

And that was perfect timing. Tony did not bother with a common touchdown but tackled the first of the bots directly and added one strike of his repulsor to send it staggering away. One step, two, just get enough space between them and Thor to get him out! They could not destroy them properly before, so why keep on trying. Tony just needed some space!

The second bot unfortunately had used the advance warning to his advantage and slammed his tentacles into the lone Avenger and sent him spinning into the debris of the wall, Thor already crumbled. It still hurt like hell.

“Jarvis! Status!”, Tony cried out and tried to get his feet under him again. The destroyed circuits in his suit did not make it easier for him to accomplish the task. The whole suit felt heavier and reacted slower than usually. The bot that threw him into the wall advanced on him again as his comrade still did not budge even one inch and clung to the demigod with all it’s eight tentacles at once, determined not to leave their catch behind.

“The pneumatic system seems to have a leakage. Energylevel down to 74%. Circuits show severe damage in the lower half of the suit. Ejection system is shut down. Sir, I’d advice a quick escape.”, Jarvis enumerated all of Tony’s nightmares when it came to the suit. A leak could become a severe problem very quickly and immobilize the suit completely.  
Great. Caged inside a fancy coffin in the middle of a fight without anything Tony would be able to move or use. Except the visual interface. That would still work and let him see his demise while trapped like being paralyzed.

“That’s exactly why I don’t do hero.”, Tony snapped and lifted his hand. The repulsors awoke without a problem and sent the robot at least one step back with a deep rumble. Wait. What?  
The wind picked up and rose the dust below him before the Quinjet came into clear view behind the bots, just above the fog.  
Like a hood ornament, Barton perched on it’s nose, bow chocked and rotated.

“I love you guy’s!”, Tony yelled as the bot before him turned around. Obviously he deemed the Quinjet a bigger nuisance than Tony at the moment.  
“Shut it Stark. Get Thor and get away. Neither Barton nor I can fire the big stuff until you fuck off. We can only distract them this long, you know?”, Natasha’s sweet, sweet voice was patched through.

“And Stark? You owe us…big!”, Barton quipped in. Tony could imagine his glowing eyes, just thinking about all the stuff they would press him now for. Whatever. Millionaire. 

“Whatever you want Legolas. Thor will even name his firstborn…Nat! Behind you!!”

  \----------------------------------------------------------- 

No. No, no, no, no, no! Where did that thing come from?  
“….Nat! Behind you!”, Tony fired his repulsors even before his brain finished thinking about what to do and hit the mother-of-all-bots square in the tentacle that was reaching for the Quinjet.

It did not do anything except catapult the arm to the side, hitting the Quinjet on it’s way. The aircraft tilted to the side, nose down, airflow disruption clearly the next step in this angle.

Tony saw it all in slow motion, calculated the inescapable and anticipated Natashas next moves. Impulses rocked the aircraft but the ascending slope could not be reached…. Wrong angle, to much weight, not enough wing-span for the Quinjet to catch aerodynamic balance at this low speed, the backside of the damned thing going down, losing the axis of gravity.

Barton clinging to the metalframe of the door for once not caring about his damn bow and slowly losing his purhchase, Nat’s almost comically wide eyes behind the windshield when she realized that she could do nothing, slowly sliding away, nothing even he could do. Nothing that could be done. To close to the ground, to close to the fog, just…. To close.

The mist crept over to Tony and Thor, slithering up the metallic legs of the bots that were still here but Tony could not react, he did not even register it. He had to keep looking at his friends slowly going down. He could not force himself to look away. 

The green fog stretched up as the Quinjet neared it. Pulled in by decrease in distance, coated the hull and encircled it more by the second. 

For a second Tony was convinced he was imagining things when the Quinjet’s race to the bottom slowed down on top of the mist, came to a soft halt and reversed ever so subtly. Slowly raising up, higher, even higher, not pulling the agents in the aircraft under but lifting them up.  
Not destroying them but saving them. Giving them height, balancing them out, before retracting slowly and spiraling down onto the ground.

Whatever Fury sent to them, it was sentient. It did not only destroy, it made decisions and seemed to recognize it’s allies. It saved Barton and Romanov! If Tony only had one second more, he would have started screaming in joy as loud as he could as the strain of watching his comrades die lifted off his shoulders. Of course Barton – the little shit –beat him to it and flooded the intercom with his “Wohoooo!”’s and “Fuck yeah!”’s. 

The fog dispersed on the way down, directed at the biggest bot but never thinned out. It covered more space without losing it’s mass it seemed. The tentacles of the machine rose up, batting at the fog, activating the tongs and grabbing at it but they never seemed to touch anything. 

As soon as the robot was hidden from all views the fog increased it’s density, contracted around the mechanic monster and stopped moving completely. Screeching of metal filled the battlefield, followed by electrical surges inside the fog and then it suddenly grew quiet.

Gravely quiet. Tony chanced a look around. He was standing in the middle of the green fog, Thor lying a few meters to his left, still out cold but otherwise unharmed as it seemed. The three bots he attacked earlier lay in waste on the ground, some of their circuits still sizzling but positively without any movement. 

“What are you?”, Tony asked the fog without addressing any special direction. Who knew where this thing appointed it’s brain, face, something to talk to? Was there even something to talk to?

The whirring of several really big engines could be heard above them. Tony knew what it was only by the noise it made. Ultimately he designed and built it.  
Like a big dark omen, the Helicarrier swung in above them. Somewhere up there Fury was surely requesting Tony’s guts on a platter for his cretinism, or something like that. 

The green fog retracted as quickly as it came, compensating on itself as if it followed a retreat commando from the carrier before it flickered out of existence completely and only some green flames were left dancing on the tarmac of the street.

“Brother?”, Thor’s small voice banished the tight silence on the battlefield and the intercom with one of the most unexpected statements Tony could ever imagine.

Well? What do you say? Inputs? Comments? I tried to channel my inner epic writer-soul and persuaded it to use English as language of choice for once (thank you very much!)


	3. Revengers assemble!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers are not sure who is to blame for the fact that Loki seems to be working with S.H.I.E.L.D. now and Tony refuses to calm down.  
> Oh yes, and Steve is left behind, only to meet a strange agent who likes to bet and obviously wnated to become a stwardess....
> 
> Steve Rogers sat down on the rubble surrounding him and watched as Iron Man headed for the Helicarrier with an armored to the teeth archer in his grip, a Quinjet following them with shrieking engines and an obviously still lightheaded Thor trying to get the right direction with his hammer in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! YESS! Finally I found some time to take a deep breath and work on this fiction again.   
> Special thanks to all of you who told me to keep up the work and told me that this story has potential. I love all of you!
> 
> I hope you have fun with it and maybe also visit my other work (-s..I hope I will find time to write more spinoffs)
> 
> If any of you have wishes for the next chapters or general requests for sinoffs / Oneshots. Let me hear them!

_Weightless he drifted through the darkness as each system slowly shut itself down. In the end the suit was never meant to operate in the vast space of nothing he currently was in._

_In the distance the bomb went off and set a whole fleet of ships aflame, set a countless number of individuals aflame. Burned them from existance._

_He had done it again. He promised Yinsen to change his life. To survive and change the world.And still, he did it again. He used one of his own bombs (Yeah, he knew his own brand, damn it Fury!) to destroy en masse._

_And now he would die here together with his suit and without ever talking to Pepper again. Not even able to say goodbye._

_Defeated he closed his eyes and felt a lonely tear escape._

 --------------------------------------------

 

“Sir? Sir, shall I contact the medical team for you? Your heart rate shows signs of distress and…”

 

Tony blinked several times before his eyes focused again. Irritated he shook his head. He did not black out that hard in a long time and never did it happen while he was in the suite.

“Everything is alright Jarvis. Patch me trough to Fury. Now!”

Yes, Anthony Edward Stark did not take lightly to being almost killed. And he even disliked it more when his allies federalized with his enemy.

 

“Sir, Director Fury is refusing your call.”, his AI informed him after several seconds. The car next to him spun in the air several times before it crash-landed again in a ball of flames.

 

“Man of Iron? What has this car done to you to receive such treatment?” , Thor’s tight voice came from his left. Ah, right. Goldielocks was still there.

Repulsor still whirring, Tony stepped up to the blond god and unlocked his visor to be able to look him directly in the eye. Even with his suits higher sole for the foot-repulsors this was only possible because Thor was still leaning on the wall next to him and did not straighten up to his full height.

 

His brown eyes bore into the blue ones of his counterpart without even blinking once.

 

“Why is your brother here? I thought he was sitting in a dungeon in fairyland, rotting away to be never seen again!”, he demanded to know.

“He is. He … the Allfather sentenced him. He can not be here.”, Thor said but tried to convince himself more that Tony as it seemed.

“You recognized him yourself or do I have problems with my ears!? So stop lying to me you presumptuous Aesir. Just because you were once treated as gods does not mean that you can lie to us whenever you need it! Why is this sociopath here again! On my world?!”, Tony kept on ranting, even grabbing Thor by the scruff of his neck and shaking him.

 

“Tony! God Tony! Stop it! Shake it off! Loki went to the Helicarrier! We have to get him before he can make an other try at grounding it!” ,the voice of Captain Rogers startled the inventor over the intercom from shaking the perplex god in front of him any further but he did not let go off his scruff.

 

“Oh come on Rogers! Use that bit of brain you have. Did the carrier activate any defense mechanism when Loki approached it? They even opened the hangar bay for him!”, Tony countered and looked up.

 

The Helicarrier was still hovering above them. Tony would have never thought that Fury would steep that low. Especially after knowing what Loki did to Barton – an agent Fury at least pretended to value as a human being.

 

“What do you imply here Tony? That Loki is working with S.H.I.E.L.D? Come on? Fury would never…”, Barton fell silent during his own sentence. Of course Fury would. Just give him the right incentive and he would do everything.

The question was only, what exactly the Allfather promised Fury to be allowed to dump his wayward son back on Midgard. Maybe some of these golden apples Thor had told them about.

 

Immortality seemed to be just the right incentive for a guy like Fury. Or the council got the apples and ordered Fury to take Loki in. So much corruption, so much greed, so many ways for the Allfather to get what he wanted.

 

“Nat, bring me up. I have some urgent matters to discuss on the Carrier.” Barton demanded with a voice like steel.

 

“No Barton. I will land now and you will calm down before you set foot there again. You are emotionally involved and you cannot think clearly at the moment. I will not let you ruin your life!”, the other agent on the Quinjet replied and started to descend.

The next thing she saw, were two strikes of bright light passing her jet, snatching Barton and taking off to the carrier with breakneck speed.

 

“Stark! Tony! Don’t do that! Both of you are in an emotional turmoil at the moment. We don’t know for sure what happened! We don’t even know for sure if it is really him! Goddamnit! We only saw green smoke!! Abort your attack! Please! Tony, don’t get the both of you killed! Not over him! Revenge will not stop the dreams at night!! Please!”, Natascha resorted to beggary in the end.

She and all the other team members knew that Barton and Stark took the greatest hits during the encounter with the Chitauri and Loki. And both of them still bore a personal grudge against Loki and were out for blood right now.

 

Neither Tony nor Barton reacted to her call. Frustrated she hit the dashboard in front of her before pushing the Quinjet to it’s limits and jerking it’s nose up while powering all engines up to full power. She would not let Barton get killed because of Tony Stark and his inability to think even one step ahead!

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

Steve Rogers sat down on the rubble surrounding him and watched as Iron Man headed for the Helicarrier with an armored to the teeth archer in his grip, a Quinjet following them with shrieking engines and an obviously still lightheaded Thor trying to get the right direction with his hammer in hand.

 

He was the Teamleader and everybody ignored him. His own team ignored him and left him behind. He needed something to fly. Not wings, they would be impractical during hand to hand combat. Maybe boots, like Tony had them? No, too heavy.  

 

“Craft 3 for Rogers. As I do not see anything big, green and angry here at the moment, I assume you switched off the communication in time?”, he asked just to fulfill his responsibilities as a teamleader.

“Rogers for Craft 3. We are clear and very Zen if I might say so. Shall we pick you up on our way back?”, the female agent replied and seemed even a bit amused.

“Is it really a good idea to bring Dr. Banner back to the carrier now?”, Steve questioned although the prospect of himself getting on the carrier was tempting.

 

“Ah, Mister Rogers. We need at least 5 minutes until we are even in the hangar again. In this time, Black Widow will have Barton and Stark in handcuffs and maybe even some pink tutus just to embarrass them for not listening to her.”

 

Steve’s eyebrow rose a tad higher.

“You are sure that you want to bet your money on that? Because I personally think that Thor will be the one to reach them first and will try to argue with them until they just surrender to his vows of Loki being on their side.”

 

The female agent did not reply immediately and Rogers thought that she lost interest in the conversation or found something better to work on.

A sudden gush of wind let him hide his head beneath his hands and as he looked up again he saw the craft touching down next to him.

At the rear-end it opened up and a quite tall woman with long, dark black hair and a gorgeous smile came out. She was clad like every other agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. but on her it looked better, Steve thought. It even looked like tailored on her.

 

“Mister Rogers. There is only one way to find out who is right. Can I offer you a ride to the Carrier? I mean…we are not a full service carrier and our on board refreshments are only a limited selection but we are fast, secure and we offer special treatment for our honored guests.”, she joked with him without restraint.

 

Steve stood up with a sigh and followed her inside the craft where Dr. Banner was already sitting in on of the chairs, his eyes foggy as if he was on drugs.

 

"Thank you for choosing us as your airline today. We are glad to welcome you on board of flight 'highway to hell...icarrier' Now would all passengers please sit down, fasten their seatbelts and switch off their phones. You are required to keep your seatbelts fstened untill I allow you otherwise. ", she singsonged and powered up the engines.

 

"Did you drug Dr. Banner?!" ,Steve demanded to know. The woman only gave him a slight smirk over her shoulder.

"No drugs. Just herbs Mr. America.", she laughed and careened upwards without a second warning. Steve struggled to fasten his seatbelt for the first time in his life.....

 


	4. First blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Barton are on the carrier and Hill tries to shed light on the situation. It does not work out as expected and ends in bloodshed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sooooo tired. It's 01:15 again. But I just had to write it down.  
> As always: Please excuse typos and grammar-issues. If you find any, you can keep them (or tell me and I will change it)  
> I would appreciate constructive criticism and also hints or wisher for further development.
> 
> Good night now to all of you!

 

In the end the quinjet was no match against the Mark XLII in the race to the helicarrier.

 

“Don’t follow him through the hangar Stark! If this is a trap, the hangar would be his best choice to overpower us with our own agents. Free sight from various angles and almost unlimited space to position his people.”, Hawkeye bellowed over the howling air around them.

 

“As if I would be that stupid. I was thinking more about a frontal attack to the bridge. What do you think?”, Tony suggested to his partner in crime and changed direction abruptly. He could almost feel the creepy smile on Barton’s face.

 

“You designed that thing, so if you tell me that we can crack that window without getting squashed on it, I’m on board here.”, he confirmed.

 

A short maneuver later they were on direct course to the front look-out of the carrier and the repulsors were as ready to burst that look-out as they would ever be.

 

* * *

 

On the bridge of the Helicarrier Nick Fury and Agent Maria Hill watched as Iron Man and a piggyback riding Hawkeye executed a perfect elliptic path that brought them in front of the hovering carrier instead of a direct course to the hangar like before.

 

“Sir, Iron Man is swinging into a frontal collision path. Should we charge the weapons and counterattack?”, one of the present agents asked with a nervous undertone in his voice. Not every day did two of their own mightiest heroes decide to charge against their own.

 

Stoic as ever Fury watched as the first system reported that there was something in the way of the carrier with a shrill beeping coming from his left side. An  other one decided that there was something out there worthy to make a ruckus. More and more systems went off. Proximity warnings, collision warnings, missile warnings… Stark was orchestrating his grand entrance as usual even without knowing, that bastard.

 

“No, agent Irwing. We cannot just shoot down Iron Man and Hawkeye but believe me when I say, that I’d so like to blast this arrogant fucker to smithereens just for the impertinence of his annoying existence but unfortunately we cannot afford loosing that asshole at the moment. But I appreciate the offer.”, Fury had to refuse contritely.

_“Collision detected. Countermeasures needed or collision has to be estimated in 20 seconds…”,_ the automatic system announced.

 

Fury felt a headache coming in and massaged his temple without any hope for change. Why? Why did that stupid Nordic god not stay down for another minute? Why did he have to wake up just in that moment? Thunderous he turned around to his second in command.

 

“Agent Hill, collect our guest and get him here as soon as possible!”, he ordered but registered her aversion to the whole situation. She has always been against it, even before everything was negotiated she made it clear that she had a bad feeling about it.

And as it seemed now, she was right with her assessment that this whole plan would end badly for all involved parties.

 

“It was never part of the plan for them to find out! The only one who would have been able to identify him was down for the count! Now we have to handle the situation to our best abilities and without casualties!”, he bellowed in his defense. “And shut somebody off that alarms!!”, he added to the rest of the crew.

It went silent immediately when somebody deactivated the alarms. Finally the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. could hear his own thoughts again.

 

_“Collision detected. Countermeasures needed or collision has to be estimated in 10 seconds…”,_ the warning came again.

 

Without a word agent Maria Hill turned around and left the bridge to fulfill her duty.

 

* * *

 

 

Nick Fury was positive that neither of the two idiots in front of him were really dangerous or tried to harm anybody in earnest, or else he would have drawn his weapon even before they breached the glass front of the carrier and tumbled inside the craft. And also his second in command, agent Maria Hill was convinced that they were just under the wrong assumptions, or else she would not have left the bridge to collect the newest member of their little circus. But this also left him more or less alone against the two enraged individuals that now pointed around with repulsors and arrows in his bridge.

All of the crew followed the example of their leader, who rose his hands and did not even so much as twitch in the general direction of his pistol. De-escalation, not aggression was needed here.  But his nerves ran even thinner, when Thor tumbled through the same hole in the exterior shell of his helicarrier that Barton and Stark left.

 

“Friends. What are you doing? Why have you risen your weapons against our friends and allies?”, was the first question the thunderer had when he was reasonably standing again. That Doombot really had to have some punch to impair the god that long. Tony suddenly felt lucky that the bots did not decide to hit him but only squished him like a chewtoy.

 

“Keep your hair on Pichatchu. We are just checking something very important here. Give me a minute.”, Stark explained his behavior. Or at least he thought that his strange behavior was explained. For Fury it still made no sense.

 

“Stark. Be prepared to get the bill for the glass and an enema from your CEO, as soon as I reach her on the phone! And Barton? You will be on special duty and cleaning all toilets on this carrier for the next two hundred years! Are we clear?”, he barked in his usual commanding tone that left no space for misinterpretation and spared both of them an intensive glare.

 

As anticipated Stark just ignored him without a comment and stepped up to the director of the most dangerous agency in the world. A hairsbreadth from his face he opened up his faceplate and stared him in the eye as if he did not believe what his visor showed him.

 

“Brown.”, he commented nonplussed. Fury’s brows knitted in irritation.

“Yeah…astute as ever Stark. Did you hit your head too hard?”, Fury inquired, not letting go of Stark’s gaze even for a second.

 

“Check the others.”, the millionaire decided and gave Barton a command. Quickly the archer checked everybody on the bridge, his bow always drawn.

“Well, I have some here with blue eyes. But I think that’s natural.”, he gave report not even a minute later. Meanwhile also the other agents on the bridge started to share confused glances with one another.

 

The voice of Maria Hill was finally the one that cleared this puzzling situation as she stepped through the door again.

“None of us are under control of the             staff or the teseract, so you will not find any blue eyes here that are not hereditary Mr. Stark. Now would you please power down your weapons, so we can throw some light onto this obviously confusing situation for you? Same goes for you Mr. Barton.”, she announced and hoped not to startle anybody on the bridge into action.

 

“You thought that my brother is controlling the fine agents of S.I.E.L.D., Man of Iron?”, Thor interrupted agent Hill as he understood what Tony and Barton thought. Well, it would have been a plan after Loki’s fancy as far as Thor knew his brother. On the other side, he did not seem to know his brother since a long time. Tony whirled around and now locked eyes with the god in front of him.

 

“Your words blondie! It were not my first words after waking up from a knockout. It was you who took a look at that green…”, he waved his hands about, searching for a term “…stuff and called it brother. Correct me if I am wrong!”, Tony ranted on. Thor seemed a bit embarrassed to Fury.

“I swear my friend that I am sorry. I did not mean to alarm you. Just, I woke up and thought to see my brother. Not my brother in flesh and blood, but disguised in one of his magic tricks. He sometimes reverted to ignoble methods to perplex the enemy and pick them off one by one. One of these tricks was a green fog…. “, Thor elaborated and scratched the back of his head. Tony just blinked twice and looked at Barton.

The thunderer was quick to add a “But I assure you, that my brother is safely confined in the dungeons in Asgard. Not even he can manage to escape them.”

 

Tony did not buy it. Not even a second. Well, he bought that Thor was really convinced that his little brother was rotting away in the dungeons. But that was too much of a coincidence here.

 

“Where is he?”, Tony hissed dangerously in the general direction of Maria Hill, who just sighed and activated her headset.

“Send him in.”, she ordered and only a second later the hydraulic door to the bridge opened again to reveal the tall frame of Thor’s bastard-brother in the hallway.

 

* * *

 

For a second Tony was convinced that he forgot how to breathe. Everything just froze for him. There, not even 10 meters away from him was the bastard who threw him out of a window. The same bastard who led an army to earth and the same asshole Tony wanted to thank for the nightmares he had ever since.

 

Barton, as it turned out harbored the same feelings but was quicker to regain control over his body. The buzz of the arrow was not even completely registered in Tony’s brain, when it already hit its target and elicited a sweet outcry of pain from the Liesmith before he went down in a heap.

 

Everything that followed was without contours and happened in a big, confusing gathering of colors, sounds and smells.

Thor, dashing forward to his brothers side. Fury, finally drawing his weapon and tasering Clint into oblivion (at least not real ammo) and ten other agents locking his head as their new target. As if he could not escape if he really wanted.

 

“Take them into custody! Now!”, Fury bellowed. Immediately afterwards Tony Stark was hauled off in the direction of the hulk-proved container on the carrier. What could contain the Hulk should be able to contain him to. That seemed to be the logic here.

 

When they passed the thundergod who was still sitting on the floor, hunched over the suspiciously still form of his mad brother, Tony registered the metallic scent in the air for the first time. And it was not the scent he was used to from his workshop. No. It was the other kind. The one he really did not like.

Caught off guard, Tony sneaked a look at the slim form on the floor. But especially fascinating was the arrow that was embedded in the left shoulder and the blood that flowed freely to the floor.

 

About then, Tony Stark understood, that he might have made a false assumption of the whole situation.

 

 


End file.
